Select Technology-based Creative Work

Student Second Life Success ProgramIn the Fall 2009 semester the University of Texas at Dallas acquired three islands in the virtual world of Second Life for use with undergraduate education as part of a grant. For one of the Associate Provosts at the University, and under the guidance of Dr. Scott Warren, Jenny designed the Student Second Life Success Program which would introduce faculty, staff, administrators, and students to the virtual environment. The program was implemented in Spring 2010 when undergraduate volunteers worked in the virtual world for campus clients to develop virtual content for the real world, learning the technology, and adding skills to their portfolio. These skills they would later use as faculty ventured into the realm to teach courses (i.e. they were prepared to work as TA's).

The IRB supported research findings resulted in a poster presentation at AERA 2011, a presentation
on the program design at SITE 2012, and a book chapter on two virtual learning experiences written together with Scott Warren and published in the book Transforming virtual world learning. Cutting-edge technologies in higher education (R. Hinrich, & C. Wankel, Eds.).

The Cuban Revolution Role Play
In the Spring of 2011 Monica Rankin, a UT Dallas professor interested in the virtual world of Second Life, asked for assistance to incorporate a unit for her course covering the Cuban Revolution. The resulting IRB supported study had students role play scenarios related to real-world events during the revolution within the virtual world. Students' role play was captured on machinina and discussed in the classroom during debriefings that were video recorded. Students were further interviewed on their perceptions of the usefulness of the module when learning historical content.

The study resulted in a roundtable presentation at AERA 2012 and a journal article published in the International Journal: Knowledge Management & E-Learning.

Twitter for Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions in an Online Course
Many American instructors had experimented with the incorporation of modules using the emerging social networking tool Twitter in learning
when Metta Alsobrook, a UT Dallas professor, decided to include it as a mandatory discussion tool in her online course in Spring 2011. Familiar with Instructional Design and a Twitter user JennyI assisted with the design and the IRB supported study of its usefulness as students learned about Global Policy Issues. Another professor at the university, Kim Knight, used the same survey instrument in her course on Digital Textuality.

The findings from the research included both quantitative and qualitative pieces and resulted in a mixed methods journal article published in 2011 in the International Journal: Knowledge Management & E-Learning, a book chapter published in Cases on educational technology implementation for facilitating learning (Ritzhaupt & Kumar, Eds.) 2013, a presentation at AERA 2013, and a journal article currently in press in International Journal of Social Media in Interactive Learning Environments.

UNIV1010 - Online Course Design
In the late Spring and Summer of 2011 Jenny collaboratively designed the online portion of the UT Dallas
online course UNIV1010 together with campus subject Matter experts. The course had been taught in a face-to-face format for many years and was turned into a hybrid with modules for online learning. The IRB supported research used survey to arrive at students' perceptions towards the new course modality.

The case study was presented at AECT 2012 together with Regents Professor Gerald Knezek and a journal article has been accepted for publication in IJEL 2016, 15(4). See publications.

The Now and Then Transmedia Game
In the early spring of 2013 Scott Warren, Jonathan Gratch, and Jenny designed and developed a transmedia game for iConference 2013. The intent with Now and Then game was to familiarize conference attendees with the host city and teach them informally about the conference surroundings.
In the months prior to the February conference attendees could follow the fictional UNT Graduate student Ripley Arnold on Facebook, Wordpress, and Twitter as she explored her new surroundings in the Fort Worth Metroplex. During the conference attendees where then invited to play the game which included using QR codes and augmented reality traversing various platforms gather information to be able to proceed in the game.

The findings from the transmedia game have been documented in a presentation proposal that has been sent to AERA 2014 for consideration.

Old Alton - Transmedia Storytelling Experience
During spring semester 2014 twenty-three students in an undergraduate Computer Applications course participated in "Old Alton", a transmedia storytelling experience that was intertwined with the curricular content of the course. Students traversed various platforms scuh as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, websites, mobile apps, the Blackboard course shell, as well as physical location on campus to seek out and gather clues that would help them solve a problem while learning computer tools and applications. Students were active participants in the developing story contributing to the narrative and solving the larger problem. Jenny Wakefield and Scott Warren designed the innovation, which Jenny was the puppetmaster for.